Liam Gilbey - NUA Animation (BA2a)

Now having finished my essay, I am happy with my final product and looking forward to the extended essay writing process. I hope to potentially stay on top of my work and write at least some of it in the summer, as my year two aims have been to improve on my organisation and time management. I believe the plan came together nicely in the end, giving me several interesting case studies to dig deeper into and perform more research on. I plan to hopefully read the scripts or get first hand evidence of the storyboards / visual story plans to strengthen my argument further. If I need to, I can always swap out some of my film choices for stronger case studies if I find them and believe they fit

Analyzing my feedback from my first draft of my essay, there are a number of comments of ranging feedback, but the main comment was -

I think this could be a really interesting report. You just have to be clear throughout of the parameters and limitations, so that it stays really focused. Anyway, well done for all the work you've put in so far – this has come on loads since we met for your group tutorial!

This is some great feedback, and after meeting Lindsey to talk to her about my essay we focused more on what was working and what wasn’t. I’ve now decided to stick with an extended essay instead of a reflective or industry report, as it’s more straightforward with the research I’m using, and keeps the focus away from myself and on the actual essay question at hand. It didn’t help that defining my own skills and the best effects I could have in the story development industry were huge questions that couldn’t be quantifiable in any easily measured way. 

The finished animation - 

Showreel Finished -

I have finished both assets in the BBc project, with this basic run-through of my female character dancing. I am going to test her in the rig to see how she fits, and if her movement is distracting I’ll add the inbetweens. As she’s onscreen for such a short amount of time, I’ve left it for now, to see how she looks when I put her in the final comp.

Showreel Draft One -

After setting some time aside for my showreel, I managed to get both animated intros and outros done. I like both of them and have rendered my showreel for the ‘first draft’. I like it, but there’s some tidying to do if I have more time. I need to shave off / add on a few frames to some clips to help them cut easier and flow better with the music, and the Bestiary clips still need resizing.

My Showreel clips are all in place, falling at around 1:50, which is an acceptable time. I still haven’t added the intro and outro but doubt the time I have in this project to finish them. I still will need to add music, so will begin looking for music. I want to find something unique but not distracting, so this may be quite a specific search. 

I finished my first draft quickly to get it out the way. I always find it helpful to write first and make amendments later, it’s always easier for me than being too precious first time.  As I wrote, the more reflective aspects of my essay began to disappear, and it became a more solid industry report. I’m still not too sure on everything I look to include, and am still looking for the right wording for a question, but I am happy with this piece as a first try.

http://lwlies.com/articles/chad-stahelski-how-to-shoot-great-action-john-wick-chapter-2/ 

My showreel is the aspect of branding I have left until last because I find this aspect of design not as intuitive for me, and video editing has never been my strong point. I’ve started by dumping every finished piece of work from uni in the timeline and whittling down my number to the very best pieces. I’ve ran into my first problem with the fact that my Quicktime files are not working, so I’m going to have to convert them, which might be a fast or slow progress, depending on the type of software I choose to use. 

BBC Tower Animation - 

Following a map of camera movements we made to make sure everyone’s camera angles were used Emily rendered out her first pass-through of the tower block animation we will be using for the final animation.

We received our first set of feedback from the BBC. It was as follows - 

“Group B: Darren and Donna – I like this one a lot. The group has taken the imagery beyond the conversation. The animation test is nice, be sure to apply principles to include sense of weight. Some of the animatic in unclear e.g. 30 - 46 secs. Can we keep the audience engaged with character acting during 22 - 29 sec.”

Ruth has submitted a visual style-frame and examples of assets which are in a style that can be made easily in both Photoshop and Illustrator, which makes this a versatile style the group can all adhere to.

All of the group agreed this polygonal style worked well and the bright colours worked well against the drabness of the building. 

BBC 4 Radio Project / Group B / Minutes 003

Thursday 22nd March 2018

Present -

Liam Gilbey

Finley Geen

Emily Denny

Ruth Bennet

Apologies -

Chloe Marr

Sienna Marks

Discussion

There’s a list of things to do in prep for our next submission. The general idea for this Friday is we should have a good idea of what our look and feel of the piece should be, unifying our visions together into one project. From there we need

An amended treatment with a finished style frame and a universal style.

A finished animatic with the new style and confirmed camera movements.

Additionally

Emily is working on camera movements through the building so we can build a ‘tech demo’ and make sure everyone understands how this project is being animated.

Amendments

From there we need to decide who is designing what. Already confirmed is -

Emily is continuing with the building and making a camera movement as soon as possible.  

Ruth is working on a style frame, unifying the colours and drawing style together for better understanding all-round

NOTE: Uploaded to Tumblr in the wrong chronological Order. This is from the following date - 

Thursday 15th March 2018

Present -

Liam Gilbey

Finley Geen

Emily Denny

Chloe Marr

Ruth Bennet

Sienna Marks

Apologies -

None

Discussion -

In this meeting we tied down what was happening in preparation for our Friday submission, coming to a overall idea on our tower block concept. Some members have their three storyboards already, but the others will need to catch up. Once we have that, we can put together a basic animatic on Friday, combining everyone’s clips.

A small change will be made to the script, with Emily working on the tower block we now need 15 seconds each instead of 10. Once everyone has that we will work towards a singular style and unified vision.

Amendments

Emily - Begin working on the Tower Block

Everyone - Finishes their three storyboards

Everyone - Fill the PDF Treatments for their respective session